5 on Friday 09/09/22

Every week there are many games and miniatures released. This will probably be a mix of previews, preorders and releases, and with release dates being the way they are in this industry, it’s always pretty approximate. Excuses out of the way, here are 5 of the releases that caught our attention this week:

Games Workshop releases Into the Dark boxed set for Kill Team – I’ve found the last few Kill Team releases to be somewhat uninspiring. It’s just been boxes of quite bland minis and quite nice terrain. This latest offering, though? Oh, this is nice. The return of the Kroot is also very welcome!

The boarders are cool as well, but the real highlight of this box for me is the terrain. It’s fantastic. It’s so cool, and yet so practical. I’m tempted just on that aspect alone. Even for use in something like Stargrave, if not Kill Team. Yeah, this is a really nice set, especially after a few stales ones in the Kill Team line.

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• The Outpost
• Element Games

Wizards of the Coast releases Spelljammer boxed set for Dungeons & Dragons 5E – Spelljammer is fun. Does it entirely make sense? No. It doesn’t need to, fam! I’m delighted that Wizards of the Coast decided to not only put out a Spelljammer book but to put out a boxed set for this unique campaign setting:

I love that there’s a map of Bral, too. It’s just cool that they can dig back into the archives and resurrect something like this. On the actual content, I’ve heard mixed reports. What’s there is fine, but I’m told it does feel a little lacking. Thankfully, there’s a ton of comparatively inexpensive content on the DM’s guild with which to shore up your Spelljammer material.

Mantic Games releases new rulebook for Kings of War – Kings of War is a game that I haven’t played, though have kept an eye on since it first launched. Mantic picked up the mantle of the ranked-up fantasy battle game following the demise of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and Kings of War has proven to be pretty popular. It’s helped by the fact that some of Mantic’s minis are also very nice. Some are also very not, but let’s focus on the positives, eh?

This does not seem to be a new edition, as the current edition isn’t actually very old at this point. Instead, it’s a collection of the various FAQs, pieces of errata, and additional rules that have emerged since the last book. Promising a range of scales in which to play, the book will likely be popular with regular players. And me? I can see myself buying some mantic minis, but I just don’t think that I’ll be playing Kings of War in the near future, good though it may well be.

Snarling Badger releases Space Station Zero, a survival-skirmish game, on Wargames Vault – Okay, so, bear with me on this one. I don’t actually know all that much about it yet!

I picked up a previous game by Snarling Badger, Reign in Hell and I really liked the book, though I’ve yet to get around to actually playing it. When I saw this latest offering, and read some initial information, I jumped in and grabbed it via Wargames Vault’s print-on-demand service. I’m hoping it arrives in the next few days and I can dive in.

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• Wargames Vault

Roll20 launches playtest of the Marvel Multiverse RPG – There have been several iterations of Marvel-themed RPGs since TSR first published their version in 1984. and this latest version is heading into a large-scale playtest. A few other games have sold playtest versions before, but it’s certainly a bold move, indicating faith in the system, and a belief that people will be willing to buy the game twice.

I can’t say that playing as established Marvel characters really interests me. The game does allow you to create your own stuff, but would I really go for this rather than an existing game that was no so closely tied to one company’s IP?

Blog Posts & Articles

The meat of 5 on Friday, the articles are listed in no particular order, so let’s get into some recommendations:

MORK BORG Minis @ Stalker7 – So, first of all, I love the opening description of MORK BORG: “If someone dropped two tabs of ‘Snoopy with Sunglasses’ to binge-watch Lord of the Rings (extended version) while listening to Swedish Death Metal, you’d get Mork Borg, the role playing game.” Spot on! The miniatures are lovely. There are so many satisfyingly dark and twisted minis in here, and the paint jobs are very fitting.

Showcase: Scrap Ork Fleet by Joshua Allan-Johns @ Scratch That – I like converting and kitbashing, but I’ve not done much scratch-building. I’ve also never played Battlefleet Gothic. So this combines two things I’ve not done into something that I really must say that I love! What a cool fleet! That it’s built entirely of scraps also seems so appropriate for the Orks.

Tabletop Scotland 2022 – To Perth and Back @ The Giant Brain – I didn’t go to Tabletop Scotland this year. It fell at the same time as some family commitments and just wasn’t possible. That was a pity, as I certainly enjoyed it last time. The author of this post seems to have had a really good time trying out a range of board games. I like how different his experience was from the one I would have had. I’d have been committed to RPGs for the whole weekend. I love that the same event can be so different for each person, but still immensely fun!

Midtcon 2022 @ The Cowabunga Journal – This is a good rundown of an Age of Sigmar event. It makes for good reading and has some fantastic pictures of some wonderfully colourful armies. I’m a sucker for some nice army pics!

We Painted The Free Rotmire Creed Model And The Results Are Sick! @ Handful of Dice – Beautiful! The Rotmire Creed miniatures are fantastic minis, and I look forward to getting mine done. The second and fourth schemes appeal to me the most. The fourth scheme would actually fit pretty well with my existing forces of Nurgle, but I think that the second would be more fun. This is a cool post with some very nice pictures of the various paint schemes.

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I wasn’t around last week, but I did publish one post since my last 5 on Friday. It was a ranking of the clans from Vampire: the Masquerade. I’ve got a few half-finished posts I need to round off over the next week or two.

Catch ya’ll next week!